Library Trends 47 (1) Summer 1998: Service to Remote Users

Remote users are not new to libraries. New and emerging technologies have enabled libraries to expand their services to include a wide range of support to their users. Too, their clientèle has grown and now includes the fast growing group of remote users. Remote users cannot be neatly packaged. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds, skills, and expertise. Remote users, in particular, are challenging libraries in new ways to rethink their mission and their services. The challenge for librarians seems clear - new technology, remote users with higher expectations, and a new information infrastructure that threatens the future of traditional libraries. If libraries are to thrive in online environments, their services and resources must be rethought in the terrain of cyberspace. This issue of Library Trends offers an exploration of prospects, challenges, and newly created services at various libraries providing online support to remote users.

Library Trends (ISSN 0024-2594) is an essential tool for librarians and educators alike. Each issue thoroughly explores a current topic of interest in professional librarianship and includes practical applications, thorough analyses, and literature reviews. The journal is published quarterly for the Graduate School of Library and Information Science by The Johns Hopkins University Press. For subscription information, call 800-548-1784 (410-516-6987 outside the U.S. and Canada), email jlorder [at] jhupress.jhu.edu, or visit www.press.jhu.edu/journals.